Rainbow Steps Baby Booties

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I logged into facebook one day to see a “Surprise! I’m 8.5 months pregnant!” post from my old college roomie and one-time bestie, Erica.  I was super happy for her, but the knitter in me panicked because there was clearly no time to knit a baby blanket!  This surprise was a blessing and a curse: on the one hand, I don’t exactly love knitting baby blankets, but, on the other hand, I like giving them to special people and Erica is definitely one of those people.  But I digress…  the point is, I had about two weeks to knit something fabulous for this baby.

I have had Saartje’s Bootees in my queue for a long time and I figured I would make those, but when I started envisioning the project with yarn and buttons I had in my stash, I just wasn’t happy with what I had available.  So I searched for more ideas and happened upon these Blue Steps Baby Booties by Regina Willer. A lot of people said they found Willer’s original pattern hard to follow, so I used the re-written version by hellahelen on Ravelry.

I saw a few versions of these booties on Ravelry that were knitted in self-striping yarn and I fell in love with those… and I’m always happy any time I get a chance to pull out the Felici!  The Rainbow Baby Blanket I recently made my niece was such a hit that I thought I’d go with rainbows again.  How cute are these??

yarn details
Knit Picks Felici in Rainbow (24194)
dye lot 46549
fingering weight
75% Superwash Merino Wool, 25% Nylon
Machine Wash, Tumble Dry Low
218 yards / 50 grams @ $5.49 each

project details
pattern: “Blue Steps – Baby Booties” by Regina Willer (free on her blog); used the rewritten version by hellahelan  (on her project page on Ravelry)
needles: size 1.5 (2.5mm) wood dpns
yarn used: 0.34 balls (actually, 0.17 each of two balls – exactly one stripe sequence) — total 74.1 yards used
gauge: in half brioche, about 4 ribs per inch
finished size: 3.25” long, 1.75” wide, 2.25” tall (leg opening about 1.25” diameter)
duration: December 21 2015 – January 24, 2016

notes

• To add the bows, knit a 7” 2 stitch i-cord, tie in a bow and stitch to front of bootie — I added the bows to cover up the section in one of the booties where the color change looked weird in the garter stitch: